


Blue and Gold

by SolosOrca



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Hogwarts AU, M/M, Set during Order of the Phoenix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 11:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10535202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolosOrca/pseuds/SolosOrca
Summary: "Gryffindor's are brave, right?" Kikumaru asked, bouncing on his seat."But dumb," Fuji added and everyone laughed.Tezuka didn't realise at the time how much those words would stick with him





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaiyuubi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiyuubi/gifts).



> OMG this fic has been, what, 4 years in the making?? There is a second chapter with the actual pillar stuff in, but that's about half done and I wanted to post this.  
> So, this was inspired by talking to Kaiyuubi about hogwarts aus and deciding to write my own, I'm so sorry this has taken so long OTL

"Gryffindor's are brave, right?" Kikumaru asked, bouncing on his seat.

"But dumb," Fuji added and everyone laughed.

Tezuka didn't realise at the time how much those words would stick with him. At the time they were said he was just a nervous 1st year sat in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express with four other boys who he'd never met before. He had no idea at the time that they would become some of his closest friends, despite being sorted into different houses.

He was sorted into Ravenclaw, which he felt was a fair decision from the sorting hat. The sorting hat had considered putting him in Gryffindor, but all things considered he felt he was much better suited to his new house. He was joined in Ravenclaw by Inui, whilst Oishi and Kikumaru went to Gryffindor, Kawamura to Hufflepuff and Fuji to Slytherin. 

Tezuka felt a tinge of sadness at not being in a house with all of his new friends, but at least some of them would have classes together and it wasn’t as if they weren’t allowed to talk to each other just because they were in other houses.

His first two years were relatively peaceful. If you could describe being surrounded by dementors for your first year followed by the Triwizard tournament and the alleged return of He-who-must-not-be-named to be peaceful. He had grown up in a pureblood family and so was used to being surrounded by magic. He made sure all of his grades were high and avoided as much trouble as you could be expected to avoid with Fuji as your best friend. Fuji never got him into too much trouble, only enough to lose him a few house points here and there, all in all, Kikumaru was probably the one who had caused him to lose the most house points. Their little group had also been joined by Momoshiro and Kaidoh, both of whom were a year younger and in Gryffindor. They were forever fighting and losing points for their house.

It was late September in his third year that the last member of their little group of friends joined them. 

Tezuka was walking through the grounds when he saw a group of first years near the lake. Normally, this wouldn’t have caught his interest. Lots of people stood around the lake, especially in first year when the lure of seeing the giant squid was too much to resist. The squid tended to stay away from the edges of the lake (Fuji had once told him it was because the squid thought they were too cool to go near the likes of students), so the only danger was one of them falling in. They’d be wet, cold and embarrassed, but nothing lethal. 

Except, this time there was a squid, its tentacle very close to the group of first years. Tezuka groaned internally and walked towards them. He was going to be late for herbology, but he didn’t want to be the one who let the first years drown.

“What are you doing?!” He shouted.

Just as the squid’s tentacle shot out and grabbed one of the first years.

Tezuka pulled out his wand, pointing it at the tentacle that was lifting the other student into the air. “Stupefy!” He cried. The spell hit the tentacle just by the first year’s foot, causing the squid to drop him and then swiftly swim away. The first year fell and hit the water causing a large splash.

Tezuka marched towards him, the other first years parting in his wake. The first year in the water (Tezuka noted that he was a Gryffindor and the words ‘brave, but stupid’ floated back into his mind) looked up at him, defiantly. Tezuka glared back at him.

“Come with me,” he said, leaving no room for argument. The other Gryffindor first years knew to keep silent, but gave their friend sympathetic looks as he followed behind Tezuka.

“What’s your name?” Tezuka asked as they crossed the grounds back to the castle.

“Echizen Ryoma,” the first year replied moodily.

Tezuka took Echizen to the hospital wing and left him to Madam Pomfrey, then went to get Professor McGonagall. 

She gave him a rather sympathetic look when he explained what had happened. “Thank you, Mr. Tezuka,” she said, “I will go and deal with him. 50 points to Ravenclaw.”

* * *

 

Tezuka didn’t see Echizen for a couple of days until, one morning at breakfast he found the first year waiting for him at the Ravenclaw table. 

“Thank you for rescuing me,” he muttered, not looking at Tezuka.

“You shouldn’t get careless around the giant squid,” Tezuka replied, “or any creature.”

Echizen just nodded glumly.

“Did you get hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Echizen shrugged, “I just got a bit wet.”

“Who was he?” Fuji asked when Tezuka sat down. Fuji tended to migrate around the house tables, no one had ever managed to stop him. Anytime anyone questioned him he told that that he was spreading school unity (Tezuka had been unfortunate to once walk in on Fuji ‘spreading school unity’ with Kawamura at the end of the previous year) and he was left alone. Tezuka gathered that Fuji was not very popular amongst his Slytherin peers, apart from with the small group that followed him around, obviously sensing that in a fight between Fuji and Draco Malfoy, Fuji would come out on top. “He was pretty cute.”

“He’s the first year I rescued from the squid,” Tezuka replied, buttering a slice of toast.

“Did you carry him bridal style to the hospital wing?” Fuji asked, “did he swoon?”

Tezuka gave him a less than amused look.

“He was perfectly capable of walking.”

“That makes you carrying him even more romantic.”

“I didn’t carry him. I merely took him to the infirmary and then informed Professor McGonagall.”

“Snitching on your boyfriend isn’t very romantic.”

Tezuka sighed, wishing there was an easy way to stop Fuji teasing him. He was not looking forward to being teased every time they saw Echizen. 

Thankfully, the post arrived before Fuji could say anything else and he was distracted by the letter his parents sent him. 

* * *

Tezuka didn’t have many problems in his life and the ones he did have he sorted as soon as possible. He found this way of working much easier and helped him maintain an uncomplicated life. Unfortunately, his current problem couldn’t be solved easily as it was the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge. 

Whilst he was of the opinion that there was a lot you could learn from a text book, you also needed practical experience, especially with spell casting. He also couldn’t stand her attitude. Even if she didn’t want to believe the He-who-must-not-be-named was back, it was stupid to sit back and sabotage her student’s education. He had been there when Harry Potter had returned from who-knows-where clinging to the dead body of Cedric Diggory and he wasn’t inclined to think he was lying about what had happened. Dumbledore believed him and that was good enough for Tezuka.

He’d never had such a useless teacher before. Even the imposter Professor Moody had been a better teacher than Professor Umbridge! His form of rebellion was to check out the previous years textbook from the library and to study from that. Sadly, he didn’t have anyone to practice with.

Right now, he was sat in the library, meticulously taking notes from an old Defence Against the Dark Arts book. He wondered if the curse of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers was going to take hold of Umbridge. He didn’t particularly want her hurt, just not in the school. It was only a few weeks into term and he was already not looking forward to the amount of revision he’d have to do for the exams. And he hated the way she had taken it upon herself to inspect all the other teachers, especially since her teaching was far inferior to everyone elses!

He heard some whispering further down his table and saw Hermione Granger taking to a couple of girls from the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He ignored them, but then their talk about Defence Against the Dark Arts floated down the table and into his ears.

“...So we thought that since we’re not learning anything in lessons, we should teach ourselves,” Granger said and Tezuka’s ears pricked up. If he were in an organised group, then he’d have people to practice with!

He got up and made his way over to them.

“Excuse me,” he said and they all looked at him, “I couldn’t help but hear what you were talking about and I was wondering if you were taking other volunteers.”

And so, he was given a time and a place for the first meeting; in the Hog’s Head during the first Hogsmeade visit. It was lucky he was in third year and able to go down to the village.

He was just leaving the library, thinking about how lucky he had been being there, when Kikumaru came charging into him, babbling about a secret defence against the dark arts organisation and how they all had to join it.

 

The Hogsmeade weekend came much faster than Tezuka had thought it would. His entire circle of friends had decided that joining the group was a good idea, although Momoshiro and Kaidoh couldn’t go to the initial meeting as they were both second years. Momoshiro mentioned letting Echizen know about what was happening and Tezuka wondered when Echizen had joined their group. Not that he minded at all, Echizen always gave him a nod when they walked passed each other in the corridors or caught each other’s eyes at mealtimes. Echizen seemed to have been adopted by Kikumaru and Momoshiro and taken firmly under their wing. Echizen, of course, wouldn't be joining them for this meeting either, but Tezuka was quite looking forward to getting to know him a bit better.

They all met in the entrance hall and walked down through the frosty October morning down to the village. Tezuka was a bit worried about how everyone else at the meeting would take the presence of Fuji, but was prepared to vouch for him if needs be. Most people knew Fuji didn’t hold with Slytherin’s superior attitude towards other houses.

They stopped off at Honeydukes first, at Kikumaru’s insistence. They didn’t know how long they’d have in Hogsmeade and he’d promised to buy some sweets for his sisters.

Tezuka didn’t go in with them, he might as well stand around in the cold rather than spend his time being buffeted and in the way in the crowded shop. He was joined by Fuji and Inui and they huddled like penguins, their backs facing the bitter wind that had blown up.

“It was sunny yesterday,” Fuji commented lightly, “I thought it was going to be a nice weekend.”

“That’s the Scottish weather,” Inui replied.

The Hog’s Head was nothing like The Three Broomsticks. It was grimy, dark and thoroughly unwelcoming.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Oishi asked, looking up dubiously at the creaking sign.

Eiji nodded, “I’m sure it is,” He glance at Fuji for support, “right, Fuji?”

“I believe so,” Fuji replied. “I’ve always wanted to go in.”

Tezuka internally sighed, Fuji would want to visit a place like this. 

No one wanted to be the first in, so Tezuka decided to bite the bullet, stepping forward and pushing the door open. The interior of the pub was just as unfriendly as the outside.In one courner was a group of people that Tezuka recognised as Harry Potter and a large group of his friends.

“We’re late,” Eiji moaned as he saw them.

“If you hadn’t spent so much time in the sweet shop we would have been early,” Fuji said cheerfully.

The meeting turned out to be very interesting. Tezuka hadn’t thought about who would be teaching them, but when he found out it was Harry Potter himself he felt relieved. Fuji had relished all of the awkward looks he’d got through the meeting, as though everyone wanted to make a big deal out of him being a Slytherin, but didn't want to got up against Fuji and his disarming smile.

He had been a bit hesitant signing the list of members, but had done so, feeling rather rebellious. He didn’t think he had ever done something that was not exactly against the rules, but close to being.

Of course, the next day he found out it was now against the rules. His heart had sunk when he’d seen the new rule from the High Inquisitor. He’d been looking forward to learning some new spells and being part of a secret group (however much a part of him disapproved of it). He wondered whether the new defence club was going to stop, or if it was going to go on regardless.

People were moving around tables a lot more than usual at breakfast that morning, all wondering what was going to happen to their own clubs. Tezuka saw a large group huddled around on the Gryffindor table and decided not to go and ask what was happening. His friends in Gryffindor would let him know.

He sat down next to Inui and was immediately informed that the defence club was going ahead and to wait for more details later. Of course Inui knew what was going on.

From what Tezuka could gather, most of the fuss at breakfast was about Quidditch. The new decree disbanded all four of the teams. Tezuka couldn’t see how Umbridge could get away with reinstating a couple of the teams and not the others, but then he hadn’t thought Umbridge would have got away with a lot of the things she had done. 

He felt nervous, thinking about the defence club. He wondered if they could get permission for Umbridge to keep going, so that they weren’t breaking any rules. But it seemed stupid just to consider it. Telling her that they were starting it up because she was such a useless teacher would definitely be inadvisable. 

His thoughts were interrupted when someone was buffeted into his back. He looked around and saw it was Echizen.

“Sorry,” he muttered, having to step into the small empty space next to Tezuka to avoid the buzzing crowd.

“It’s no problem,” Tezuka replied, his tea hadn’t split and he had only received a small bump.

Echizen looked around quickly, then leaned in and whispered, “are you going to Potter’s defence thing?”

Tezuka blinked, surprised and nodded.

Echizen gave him a grin like a cat looking at a cornered mouse, “You shouldn’t get careless and break the rules.” Tezuka was about to reply, when Echizen added, “I’m going too. See you around.” And with that he left, leaving a slightly bemused Tezuka in his wake.

He had Defence Against the Dark Arts first lesson, a lesson he was quickly starting to endure rather than enjoy. He finished reading the allocated chapter halfway through the lesson and then read it again. It wasn’t like Umbridge had any more work to give him. Next to him, Inui was on his fourth reading of the chapter. Normally, Inui would take notes whilst reading textbooks, but Umbridge had told him not to in their first lesson, so now they were both stuck re-reading in silence.

Tezuka’s mind, bored by reading about how to run away from dangerous situations, started to think about Echizen. He tried to brush them away, feeling guilty about neglecting his studies, but thinking about Echizen whispering in his ear was far more enjoyable than Tezuka thought it should be.

The problem was, he was now starting to see Echizen everywhere. There was something about him that drew Tezuka’s eyes straight towards him. Every time Echizen caught Tezuka watching he just gave him a smug look and then carried on doing whatever he had been doing, as though it hadn’t affected him at all. Tezuka just assumed his ability to pick Echizen out in any crowd was due to some sort of brotherly protective instinct. The other boy was stupid enough to play around Giant Squid, there was no telling what he would do next!

The problem was, Fuji had also noticed Tezuka’s new skill and was quite happily using it to tease him. Tezuka had explained his brotherly protective feelings theory, but Fuji had just laughed in the way he did when he wanted to humour Tezuka.

* * *

 

Word reached him via Fuji a couple of days later at dinner about the defence lessons. He had no idea how they’d managed to find a secret room in such short a time, but was looking forward to it. He and Inui headed towards the seventh floor at quarter to eight. Whilst they knew they were allowed to be out, neither wanted in particular to be seen by a teacher. They met the Gryffindors on the way, which meant keeping their group quiet and unseen got far more difficult. 

They reached the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy at eight. They knocked on the door that Tezuka could have sworn never existed before and entered to find themselves in a large room. 

The first thing they did was vote for a leader, which obviously ended up being Harry Potter and sorted out a name. And so, the first meeting of the DA began.

Tezuka knew about Expelliarmus, but had never used it before. He tried to partner up with Fuji, but saw the other boy leading Kawamura off to a spot to practice. 

“We’re the only ones left,” A voice at his side said. Tezuka looked down and saw Echizen looking up expectantly.

“Okay,” Tezuka nodded and they found a spot to practice.

Tezuka felt pretty bad about disarming a first year, until Echizen started taking advantage of that fact and disarmed him every time he hesitated. Echizen was very good for someone who had never done the spell before. The first couple of times his spell wasn't strong enough, but then he seemed to get the hang of it and soon Tezuka’s wand was flying out of his hand every time Echizen cast the spell. It seemed like Echizen had a natural talent, able to pick things up in no time.

Time seem to fly by, so when Potter called the meeting to an end fifty minutes later it felt like only twenty had passed. He went to bed that night with a warm feeling inside his chest, thinking about how Echizen had smiled at him when they’d parted ways, a feeling he didn’t particularly want to analyse.

* * *

 

The DA meeting times were very irregular, due to Quidditch practices and other club meetings. They were soon issued with charmed galleons, the numbers on which changed to show the date of the next meeting. Tezuka was very impressed by them, especially how Hermione was able to perform a N.E.W.T level spell.

His worry about being part of an illegal club started to disappear as he learnt more and more magic. Echizen became his regular practice partner and Tezuka was amazed at how the first year took to all the spells, hexes and jinxes like a duck to water. He couldn’t help but feel that Echizen was going to become a great wizard and wondered what his plans were for after school, or if he had any ideas (since he was only in first year and had probably never even considered it). They didn’t do a lot of talking during their practicing, mainly making comments on each other’s technique. They didn’t really talk outside of DA meetings either, despite being in the same group of friends. Kikumaru and Momoshiro tended to monopolise his time, so all they did was make rather awkward small talk about classes and the weather.

He was walking back from the library one day, thinking about why he wanted to get closer to Echizen and how he could achieve it. He was still sure it was some sort of brotherly affection for the boy, although, having never had a brother, he wasn’t sure he should get such a warm feeling in his chest every time Echizen smiled at him.

He passed an empty classroom and heard a strangled sob. He considered just ignoring it, walking on and letting the person inside have some privacy. He decided to knock, and if the person inside told him to go away he would.

The person inside sniffed and then said in a voice Tezuka recognised all too well, “what?”

“Echizen?” Tezuka asked, pushing the door opened slightly and looking in.

The room was dark and Tezuka could only just make out the figure of Echizen sat on the floor, leaning against a desk.

“Oh, it’s just you,” Echizen said, rubbing quickly at his eyes with his hand.

Tezuka sidled into the room, shutting the door behind him. “What happened?”

“I had detention with that evil old hag,” Echizen explained as Tezuka sat down next to him.

Tezuka nodded, but didn’t really understand. He’d never had detention in his life, but from what he understood it wasn’t really something to cry over. 

“It really hurts,” Echizen continued, offering his right hand to Tezuka. The room wasn’t light enough to see, so Tezuka pulled out his wand and lit the end of it. 

Carved into the back of his wand were the words ‘I will not sleep in class’. It looked raw, red and very painful.

“How did she do this?” Tezuka asked, having images of Umbridge carving the words into Echizen’s skin with a knife.

“She has this quill,” Echizen explained, “you write with it using your own blood and it carves the words into your hand.”

Tezuka looked at the works cut into his hand, feeling the anger swelling inside him, “All this for just for falling asleep?”

“Her lessons are so boring, I read the stupid chapter before I fell asleep,” Echizen added, not wanting to get told off by Tezuka for falling asleep in class.

“She’s evil,” Tezuka said, still not taking his eyes off the words written in Echizen’s neat handwriting. “How long has she been making you do this?”

“Couple of days.”

“You should tell someone.”

“Who’s going to go up against her? She’ll just put them on probation!” Echizen was quiet for a moment, “besides, being part of the secret army is enough revenge.”

Tezuka tore his eyes away from the back of Echizen’s hand and looked him in the eyes. He looked so lovely, the light from Tezuka’s wand shimmering in his eyes, making them look like liquid gold.

Tezuka suddenly had the urge to lean in closer and kiss him. He’d never wanted to kiss anyone before, but right now all he wanted to do was lean in and press Echizen’s lips against his own.

He resisted the urge. Echizen was only eleven and couldn’t possibly feel the same way as he did.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked, breaking their little moment.

“Yeah, but it’ll be fine in a bit,” Echizen shrugged.

“Do you have detention tomorrow as well.”

“Yeah.”

Tezuka nodded, “meet me in the library straight after, I’ll make something that’ll stop it hurting.”

* * *

 

The next day, Tezuka brought a bottle of murtlap essence to the library with him. Echizen looked thoroughly miserable when he arrived after his detention and Tezuka ushered him to an empty classroom where he prepared a bowl full of the essence.

The look of relief on Echizen’s face was worth the effort he’s put in acquiring the essence.

“What is this stuff?” Echizen asked, “or don’t I want to know?”

“Picked and drained murtlap tentacles,” Tezuka replied and Echizen made a face.

“At least it works,” he said.

“How many more detentions do you have?” 

“Tonight was the last one,” Echizen said, “thankfully. One day I’m going to smash those stupid plates in her office!”

“Plates?” Tezuka asked. He’d never been into Umbridge’s office before.

“She has those decorative plates with kittens on,” Echizen explained, “and they move. They kept staring at me like they were mocking me.”

“Don’t you like cats?”

“I like  _ my _ cat. I don’t really care about other people’s,” Echizen shrugged, “do you like them?”

Tezuka thought about it, he didn’t really have much of an opinion about cats. He had a long-eared owl named Rowena, who was very useful. The cats he’d met around the common room were okay, most were pretty friendly, but they couldn’t compare to an owl who you could use to carry your post. “They’re fine,” He replied diplomatically. “So, are you enjoying your first year in Hogwarts?” he asked, mostly to keep the conversation going.

Echizen looked at his hand and smirked, “other than cutting my hand open for the past few days, it’s fine. My mum’s a witch, but she never really did any magic because we were in the public eye a lot.”

“Your family is famous?” Tezuka asked, feeling rather ashamed about how little he knew about the muggle world. He was a pureblood and had grown up thoroughly surrounded by the wizarding world.

“My dad’s an ex-pro tennis player,” Echizen said as if it wasn’t a big deal (Tezuka didn’t know how much of a deal it was, having never heard of tennis before). 

“Tennis?”

Echizen gave him an incredulous look, “you don’t know what tennis is?”

“I’m afraid not,” Tezuka replied, feeling rather stupid.

“It’s a sport, you hit a ball back and forth over a net and-” He paused, Tezuka couldn’t help but notice how his face lit up when he talked about tennis,“that makes it sound rubbish.”

“No it doesn’t,” Tezuka told him, “Quidditch would sound rubbish if you had to explain it.”

“I’ll show you it,” Echizen said, “somehow. I’ll figure something out. It’s really easy anyway, so I’ll teach you as thanks for this,” he motioned to the murtlap essence.

“Have you had flying lessons yet?” Tezuka asked.

“Yeah,” Echizen said, grinning, “it was fun.”

“Are you thinking about joining the Quidditch team?”

Echizen shrugged, “I dunno, I might try out at some point. But I’m a first year, so I can’t yet. I’m not Harry Potter.”

“I’ve never tried out,” Tezuka admitted, “I’d rather spend my time on my studies. I do enjoy flying very much though.”

“We should go flying at some point,” Echizen said, taking his hand out the bowl and looking at the cuts that were now much less red and not hurting at all. 

Tezuka nodded in agreement, although wasn't sure when this would happen, as far as he was aware the Quidditch pitch was pretty much fully booked by the house teams for practices.

"You're from a wizarding family, right?" Echizen asked.

"Yes. All my family are wizards. How did you know?"

"You don't know what tennis is," Echizen replied with a smirk. "I'd better go, Momo will think that hag's eaten me if I stay here too long."

Tezuka nodded, he had plenty of homework to do, even if the thought of wasting the rest of the evening with Echizen was more than a little inviting.

They left the room together and walked to where they had to part to their respective common rooms in comfortable silence. He bid Echizen good night as they parted and then headed up to Ravenclaw Tower.

* * *

 

The next couple of days passed by quite quickly. Tezuka was so busy with school work that he barely registered when the galleon in his pocket grew hot. He pulled it out and looked at the date, realising that the next DA meeting was going to be that night. The thought of that helped him through Defence Against the Dark Arts. He’d never hated anyone in his life quite as much as he hated Professor Umbridge. Everytime he looked at that sugary smile on her face all he could think about were the words cut into Echizen’s hand and the anger flared up inside him. He apparently wasn’t the only one to feel this way. From what he’d heard from Oishi, they’d had to physically hold Momoshiro back from taking on Umbridge himself.

How anyone could think the use of that quill was ethical was beyond him. As far as he was aware, students did useful work around the school in detentions. Usually menial and hard work, but nevertheless, something that benefited the school in some way, even if that way was just to give the house elves one less task. 

But no one benefited from that quill other than Umbridge, who Tezuka was sure got some kind of sick thrill out of it.

He was so relieved when the lesson was over. He’d spent most of it glaring at his textbook, not taking anything in. He was sure Umbridge had noticed, judging by the look she gave him and he left the classroom as fast as he could without looking suspicious. He’d never been anything other than a model student and took pride in his perfect record. But right now, he’d have thrown it all away just to cause some trouble for Umbridge.

“Tezuka, where are you going?” Inui called after him as Tezuka strode away. Tezuka didn’t even know where he was going, he just kept walking, wanting to be alone for a bit. 

He knew he was probably going to miss dinner, but didn’t care right now. He was just so angry. Angry at Umbridge for ruining his school and hurting his friend and angry at himself for not being brave enough to stand up to her. He wanted to tell someone, but who could he tell? With Umbridge as the High Inquisitor he doubted even Dumbledore could do anything about her.

He found himself outside the owlery, from inside he could hear the screeches and hoots of the owls and the shuffling of feathers. He rested his head against the door and let out a long sigh, collecting himself.

“Is it locked or something?” someone asked from behind him. He spun around and saw Echizen, his hands on his hips, looking a bit put out.

“No,” Tezuka replied.

“Can I get through then?” Echizen asked, when Tezuka didn’t move out the way. Tezuka nodded and stood aside, letting Echizen in.

“How’s your hand?” He asked, following Echizen into the owlery.

“Fine,” Echizen replied, looking for a school owl. “That stuff was really good.”

“I’m glad it helped.”

They stood in silence as Echizen picked out a barn owl and tied his letter to its leg.

“Have you had dinner?” Tezuka asked, before realising there was no way Echizen had time to eat before coming up to the owlery. Now that his anger had worn off he was suddenly feeling very hungry.

“No,” Echizen replied, taking his owl over to the window and letting it fly out into the dark sky. Tezuka watched it as it soared away, illuminated ghostly white by the light from the castle. “have you?”

Tezuka shook his head, “we should probably leave if we don’t want to miss it.”

“Are you going to the Quidditch match on Saturday?” Echizen asked airily as they walked through the empty corridors together.

“I am,” Tezuka replied. All of his friends were going together and he just assumed Echizen would be joining them.

“I don’t know much about Quidditch,” Echizen admitted, “and Momo’ll probably laugh at me if I ask him dumb questions, so could I ask you?”

“Of course,” Tezuka said, “I don’t know the finer points of the game, but I can explain the basics.”

They went their separate ways when the reached the Great Hall, Tezuka went to sit with Inui and Fuji, who both gave him curious and slightly amused looks. Tezuka ignored them and started eating.

* * *

 

Tezuka found himself looking forward to Saturday. Whilst he did enjoy Quidditch matches, he had never looked forward to them in the way some people did. It promised to be a good match though, Gryffindor versus Slytherin games usually were. Tezuka would be supporting Gryffindor. He didn’t feel any guilt in doing this as Fuji was also supporting them, the Slytherin team being full of people he hated.

The Great Hall was full of the normal pre-match animosity when Tezuka came down for breakfast on Saturday morning. As he was a Ravenclaw, no one paid him any attention as he went over to the table and sat down. All he could hear were the jeers and catcalls between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins. Normally, he would have just gathered up some food and left to eat elsewhere as he really wasn’t a fan of the Gryffindor-Slytherin animosity. He could see why it was, but he’d much prefer it if everyone just got along, or at least kept it down during meal times.

However, today he filled with a strange sense of anticipation, one that allowed him to block out the two houses and eat breakfast in peace.

“Who do you think is going to win?” he asked Inui, who was looking through his Quidditch notebooks.

“Gryffindor has a 68% chance of winning. Their new keeper, Ron Weasley, has self-confidence issues when it comes to Quidditch and allows himself to be flustered by the Slytherin supporters easily,” Inui explained, “but the rest of Gryffindor’s team is the same as last year and are still very good.”

Tezuka nodded sagely, “it should be a good match.”

* * *

 

They all met up outside the Great Hall. All the Gryffindor students were decked out in red and gold, even Echizen, although he looked as if the scarf, hat, gloves and rosette had all been forced on him. Momoshiro handed all his non-Gryffindor friends a small flag, red and gold again with a roaring lion.

“Did you make these yourself?” Fuji asked, taking his and waving it happily. He was also holding a Slytherin flag, but it wasn’t quite as nice as the Gryffindor one.

Momoshiro grinned and nodded, “it took me all night!”

“Don’t you have masses of homework?” Echizen said snidely.

Momoshiro glared at him, “unlike you and what did you do to help?”

“I offered you moral support.”

“You shouldn’t neglect your studies, Momoshiro,” Tezuka told him and he looked quite guilty.

He turned to leave and just heard Echizen whispering, “you shouldn’t get careless,” to his friend.

They joined the flow of students going down to the Quidditch pitch, Tezuka hung black slightly from the main group, who were trying to explain everything about Quidditch to Echizen as they went. He was joined by Fuji, who was irritatingly smiling knowingly at him as if he knew about Tezuka and Echizen’s conversation in the owlery and knew how much Tezuka would quite like to have been the one explaining the game to Echizen. In reality, Momoshiro and Kikumaru were far more qualified than Tezuka to explain it, having followed the sport all their lives, but he still couldn’t help wish to be the one doing it.

Echizen didn’t seem too pleased with this arrangement either, although that could have easily been because Momoshiro and Kikumaru insisted on hanging off of him.

They took their seats in the stands on the Gryffindor side of the pitch. Momoshiro was still talking Echizen’s ear off about how his team, The Tutshill Tornados were currently winning the league. Tezuka sat behind them, along with Kaidoh (who was muttering about how his team was far superior to the Tornados), Fuji, Inui and Kawamura.

After a couple of minutes, Echizen seemed to notice Tezuka was directly behind him and clambered over the seats to steal the seat next to him.

“Echizen, why did you move?” Momoshiro complained.

“You’re too noisy,” Echizen said.

How Momoshiro was too noisy when the Slytherins had started up a nasty song about Ron Weasley was beyond Tezuka, but he wasn’t complaining. 

Soon, the stands had filled up and then, with a roar from the crowd, the teams walked onto the pitch.

It turned out Inui was right about the new Gryffindor keeper. The Slytherin's song was getting to him so much that he may as well not have even been there for how effective he was. Momoshiro and Kikumaru were yelling their support (and disapproval) at the top of their voices, but it wasn’t making it through the wave of noise from the Slytherin end.

“I don’t know why they’re worrying,” Tezuka heard Echizen say after Slytherin has scored their fourth goal, “All Gryffindor need to do is catch the snitch.”

“That’s easier said than done,” Tezuka admonished him.

“Yeah, but it’s right there,” Echizen said, pointing to the other end of the pitch to where the snitch was fluttering around the Slytherin’s goal hoops. “I’ve been seeing it all match.”

“You should become a seeker.”

“Nah, tennis is more fun,” Echizen brushed off the comment, “you only have one ball you need to look out for.”

It turned out Echizen wasn’t the only one who had seen the snitch, because a few moments later both Potter and Malfoy dived for it. 

Tezuka heard Echizen mutter, “finally,” before the entire crowd roared their support as the two boys plummeted towards the snitch and then chased after it, neck and neck.

A split second later and it was only the Gryffindor end cheering as Potter caught the snitch, holding it up in the air and celebrating.

“That was quick,” Echizen said, “are matches usually this short?”

“Sometimes,” Tezuka replied, “but they can go on for days.”

“I think that would be worse,” Echizen said, looking up at Tezuka and smirking. Tezuka gave him a small smile and then looked back to the pitch where a small brawl had just begun.

“What’s happening?” Tezuka asked Fuji.

“Malfoy was being a dick,” Fuji replied as Madam Hooch pulled Potter and one of the Weasley boys off of Malfoy, “as usual.”

Tezuka frowned, even if they were provoked, fighting on the Quidditch pitch was not acceptable. He saw Umbridge following the two Gryffindors as they were sent off the pitch and his heart sunk, whatever punishment she was going to hand out would be far too severe for the crime.

They filtered out of the stands with the rest of the crowd and made their way back to the castle. 

“They won’t get punished too bad, right?” Momoshiro asked.

“Malfoy did provoke them,” Kikumaru said.

“But they should have just ignored him,” Tezuka reminded them, Fuji nodding at his side, “fighting him makes them as bad as he is.”

As they reached the castle, Echizen started to lag behind the group a bit. Tezuka turned to check he was okay and Echizen nodded off to one side, indicating he wanted to talk to him. Tezuka dropped back as well and they found a quiet spot.

“Are you still interested in tennis?” Echizen asked.

“I am,” Tezuka replied, feeling rather happy that Echizen had remembered their conversation.

“I found a place,” Echizen said, he lowered his voice to a whisper, “do you know where the DA meet? I’ll see you there after dinner.”

* * *

 

After dinner, Tezuka headed up to the Room of Requirement. He’d seen Echizen leave ten minutes before him, so didn’t have to worry about arriving early.

However, when he got there, Echizen was nowhere to be seen and he couldn’t find a doorway to go through. He took a book out of his bag and leaned against the wall, waiting for Echizen to arrive from wherever he’d disappeared off to.

A few minutes later, Echizen appeared, carrying a large bag over his shoulder. Tezuka didn’t say anything as he stood in front of the wall and shut his eyes, muttering something under his breath.

A door materialised in the wall and Echizen grinned, “ready to see what tennis is like?”

Tezuka stepped through the door and found himself on a perfectly manicured lawn. There were white lines drawn on the grass and a net stretched across the middle of what Tezuka assumed was the court.

Echizen dropped his bag and opened it, pulling out a red bat with an enlarged end, crisscrossed with strings and a yellow ball.

“This is a racquet,” Echizen said, “you use it to hit the ball back and forth.”

Echizen then started to explain what all of the lines on the court were for. Where you served from and where the serve had to go into, where was in and where was out (“You don’t need to worry about doubles,” Echizen told him, “so just ignore those lines.”) and the scoring system.

“No points is called ‘love’, then the points go 15, 30, 40 and then you win the game,” Echizen said, “if you both have 40 then it’s called ‘deuce’ and you have to win two more points in a row to win the game.”

He then went on to explain about sets. Tezuka tried to take it all in, but he felt they were going to have to over all of this again. Actually, having a go at it would definitely help cement it in his mind.

“I’ll show you how to serve,” Echizen said, taking his place at the baseline and bouncing the ball a couple off times.

Then, he tossed the ball high in the air, jumped and swung his racquet at the ball. Racquet and ball connected as the ball began to fall and it was sent flying over the net into the service box, bouncing against the grass and then flying off the court. 

Tezuka was amazed, the serve had been so effortlessly graceful, but so powerful. He was sure the image of the curve of Echizen’s back and the arc his arm had made would be burnt into his mind forever.

Echizen turned to him and smirked, holding out his racquet, “your go.”

Tezuka took the racquet and walked to the spot where Echizen had served from. Echizen tossed him a ball and Tezuka caught it.

“Don’t worry about jumping,” Echizen told him, “just try and hit the ball in.”

Tezuka bounced the ball a couple of times and tossed it into the air. He hit it on the edge of the racquet, sending it into the net. Feeling stupid, he turned to look at Echizen, who shrugged.

“At least you hit it,” he said and then moved in to correct Tezuka’s form.

They spent the rest of the ‘lesson’ working on serves and by the end of it Tezuka was able to hit the ball into the service area every time. His form was nowhere near as beautiful as Echizen’s, but, he reasoned, this had been his first ever time playing tennis, Echizen had been playing since he was old enough to walk.

“You’ll get better,” Echien assured him, as he packed up his racquet and balls, “You still have a long way to go though.”

Tezuka nodded, he wondered what it was like to play against Echizen and whether he’d ever get the chance before the end of the year. “If we ever play a match,” he said, “don’t go easy on me.”

Echizen chuckled, “I don’t go easy on anyone.”

* * *

 

The next month rolled past, with the only thing of note happening being the gamekeeper/Care of Magical Creatures teacher re-appearing. But as Tezuka didn’t take Care of Magical Creatures, this meant little to him. The DA meetings were going well and his tennis had improved immeasurably, still nowhere near the skill of Echizen, but he was now able to return basic shots, although not often successfully. He was enjoying learning about the sport and hoped Echizen enjoyed teaching him. But then, he was pretty sure if Echizen didn’t want to do something, he wouldn’t.

They hadn’t told their other friend’s what they were doing. He felt a bit guilty about that, but he enjoyed his couple of hours a week alone with Echizen and didn’t want it to change. Maybe one day, they’d bring their friends in on it, hopefully Tezuka would have improved even more by then.

“Are you staying here for Christmas?” Echizen asked, as they left the last DA meeting of term.

“I am,” Tezuka replied. He found himself hoping that Echizen would be staying too, as far as he was aware, none of their friends were staying.

“Good,” Echizen said, “none of the others are.”

Tezuka nodded, happiness blooming inside him. He wasn’t going to be alone over Christmas!

It started to snow a few days later and there was a couple of centimetres lying on the ground as they waved off their friends. 

“Have a good holiday,” Fuji said, his eyes flicking over to Echizen as he said it, then he pulled Tezuka into a goodbye hug. Tezuka was sure he was implying something, but ignored it.

“You too,” he said, awkwardly patting Fuji on the back.

Tezuka and Echizen stood on the edge of the doorway and watched as their friends disappeared into the falling snow.

They spent the next few days mainly in the library, either reading or doing homework. As they weren’t in the same house, they had to find places to hang out. Tezuka didn’t mind staying in his common room by himself, but he got the feeling that it would be lonely for Echizen, who was used to having more friends around him. It seemed like, even though he didn’t talk much, Echizen did like being surrounded by people. Tezuka didn’t mind, he would have spent most of his holiday in the library anyway and it was nice to have someone to sit with him and have the occasional whispered conversation with. 

The school had its usual lavish decorations up, it seemed almost everything was covered in magical snow, holly, never melting icicles and all kinds of Christmas decorations. They made the eerily empty corridors a lot less empty, especially when the suits of armour broke out into song every time you walked past them. Although, this could be rather annoying if you walked down a corridor full of multiple suits of armour, all of which sung different songs. Peeves had taken to floating over unfortunate pairs of people with mistletoe and harassing them until they kissed. Tezuka and Echizen had been ambushed by Peeves on their way to the library and, when Echizen kissed the back of Tezuka’s hand to get him to go away, had followed them through the corridors singing ‘Shorty loves Tezuka!’ at the top of his voice.

When they weren’t in the library they went on walks around the castle and grounds. The snow had deepened so much that it was up to Echizen’s knees, and looked to be even deeper when Tezuka awoke on Christmas Eve.

He dressed quickly (as the dormitory was very cold) and headed down to breakfast. 

The twelve Christmas trees in the Great Hall twinkled and glittered beautifully, each decorated differently. He was surprised to see Echizen at the Gryffindor table, sleepily eating a bowl of cereal. Echizen had been using the holidays as an excuse to sleep in as late as possible, normally barely making it to breakfast.

“Good morning,” Tezuka greeted him, deciding to take a leaf out of Fuji’s book and sit at the Gryffindor table today. The Ravenclaw table was completely empty and it wasn't as if he was taking the seat from a Gryffindor student.

“Mornin’,” Echizen said, smothering a yawn.

Tezuka was about to ask what had got Echizen up so early, but then the post arrived. It wasn’t the usual rush of owls, Tezuka guessed there were about twenty altogether. One landed in front of him, bringing him his daily copy of the Daily Prophet. He took the paper and paid the owl, who took off, and then realised that he and Echizen were surrounded by owls.

“It’s my birthday,” Echizen said simply when he saw Tezuka’s confusion. He then set about getting all the cards and presents off of the owls. 

“Happy Birthday,” Tezuka said, watching as Echizen took a very large package from a fearsome looking eagle owl and gave it a pat on the head.

“Thanks.”

Soon, Echizen had a pile of presents on the seat next to him and a pile of envelopes next to his bowl, which he started to open.

He made a disgusted face when he looked at the image on the first one he’d opened and Tezuka caught a glimpse of it as he put it face down on the table. It showed a picture of a good looking woman in skimpy underwear.

“My dad’s a pervert,” Echizen explained, catching Tezuka’s look of surprise before reading the letter that had come out of the card.

Thankfully, all of the other cards were innocent and, by the time Tezuka had finished his scrambled eggs and bacon, they were all surrounding Echizen.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything,” Tezuka said.

“You didn’t know it was my birthday,” Echizen shrugged, he smirked, “just play some tennis with me and you’re forgiven.”

Tezuka nodded, “if it’s not snowing later, would you like to go flying? We could use the Quidditch pitch.”

“Sure,” Echizen said, packing his presents roughly into his bag. 

That morning they played a match. Even though it was Tezuka’s first time playing a proper match, Echizen, as promised, did not hold back and Tezuka was subjected to the beauty and ferocity of Echizen’s tennis.  

He did manage to score a point though and the knowledge that Echizen had been going all out made it even sweeter.

“Not bad,” Echizen said as they left and made their way to lunch, “you’ve still-”

“Got a long way to go,” Tezuka finished the sentence for him, “I know.”

After lunch, they parted ways to dress in their warmest clothes and then met back in the entrance hall. It had stopped snowing, but the clouds were white and heavy with more.

Echizen had difficulty wading through some of the drifts of snow on the way to the Quidditch pitch.

“Are you okay?” Tezuka asked as Echizen stubbornly continued through the snow at his side, rather than falling back and following in Tezuka’s footsteps.

“I’m fine,” Echizen replied, glaring at the snow.

“I-”

“I’m not letting you carry me,” Echizen snapped, “I know I’m short, but I can make it through snow!”

“I wasn’t going to suggest it,” Tezuka said. He’d been about to tell Echizen to walk behind him, but judging by Echizen’s reaction his height was a bit of a sore point and he was as stubborn as a mule.

The snow was much less deep on the Quidditch pitch, having been sheltered by the stands. They went to the broom cupboard and borrowed a couple of the school brooms, they weren’t all that great, but neither had their own broom so they didn’t have a choice. Echizen found an old quaffle at the back of the cupboard and they tossed it back and forth to each other, trying to get the other to drop it.

Tezuka was impressed at how naturally Echizen had taken to flying. He was finding it hard to think of anything the first year wouldn’t be naturally good at. It was a little sickening, although he had fumbled the ball a couple of times, almost falling off his broom the last time he reached a little too far to catch the quaffle. In revenge, he’d thrown it so hard that Tezuka had had to fly backwards in order to catch it and had almost crashed.

“Have you ever played Quidditch?” Echizen asked, fainting throwing to the left and then throwing to the right. 

Tezuka didn’t fall for his trick and caught the ball easily. “A few times. Only with friends on makeshift pitches. Do you play tennis in tournaments?”

Echizen nodded, catching Tezuka’s throw, “I’ve won plenty of them as well.”

Tezuka wasn’t surprised, he barely knew anything about tennis, but he had been sure that Echizen was a very good player. “Do you have any plans for when you leave school?” 

Echizen made a face, “no, it’s too early to think about those things.”

Tezuka nodded, that was fair enough. He knew that he wanted to work for the Ministry of Magic, but didn’t know what he wanted to do. Or, rather, he had wanted to work for the ministry, their utter denial of You-Know-Who’s return had put him off a bit recently.

As they played, it started to snow again.

“Do you think we could fly back?” Echizen asked.

“No,” Tezuka replied, “We’ll make it back.”

He was sure he heard Echizen mutter, “easy for you to say,”

Despite all their warm clothes, they were both starting to get cold as it neared dinner time. Tezuka was just about to suggest heading back when Echizen made a reach for the quaffle, missed and slipped off his broom. 

Tezuka shot forward and grabbed Echizen by the back of his robes. The sudden jerk of Echizen as his fall was stopped unseated Tezuka and he found himself falling with Echizen into the snow.

It was lucky they hadn’t been flying too high up, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when they landed.

It took Tezuka a couple of seconds to come to his senses, then he realised he was lying on top of Echizen, his face pressed against the side of the first year’s.

He quickly pushed himself up on his arms, “are you okay?” he asked, painfully aware that he could still feel Echizen’s skin against his own.

“‘m fine,” Echizen mumbled, not moving, “just winded.”

Tezuka looked over Echizen, to check that he was, indeed okay, but only ended up focusing on his face, flushed with the cold, snowflakes caught in his long black eyelashes. He realised ‘pretty’ was a word Echizen wouldn’t appreciate being used to describe him, but it was true. He hadn’t realised quite how beautiful Echizen’s eyes were, brown with flecks of green and he had to stop himself gazing into them. Unfortunately, Tezuka’s eyes immediately locked onto Echizen’s lips, thin and pink and all Tezuka could think about was leaning down and pressing his own against them. He tried to push the thought away, but his mind was running away with it, imagining him holding Echizen’s warm body against him and kissing him deeply. He wouldn’t imagine it would be comfortable for long, the snow under them was already melting, soaking them.

That thought snapped him to his senses and he rolled off Echizen, getting to his feet before helping Echizen up and brushing the snow off the both of them. Echizen looked sullen as they retrieved their brooms from the snow and put them and the quaffle back in the broom cupboard. Tezuka just felt guilty. Echizen was only a first year and he had been lying on top of him and forcing him to stay in the snow longer than he should have, just because he’d been imagining kissing him!

They walked back up to the castle in silence and went their separate ways to change clothes and warm up. Tezuka grabbed a spare change of clothes and went straight to the bathroom, running himself a hot bath all the while pondering how he could make it up to Echizen. He was going to apologise next time they saw each other (although he would not mention wanting to kiss him), but he wanted to do something to show how sorry he was, after all, if Echizen caught a cold because of Tezuka’s carelessness then it would be all his fault.

Echizen was waiting for him at the Ravenclaw table when he arrived at the Great Hall. 

“I’m sorry,” Tezuka said as soon as he sat down.

Echizen looked confused, “why?”

“I’m sorry for lying on you for so long,” Tezuka clarified.

“Oh, that. It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Echizen shrugged it off.

Tezuka nodded and let himself feel a bit less guilty. He had still thought about kissing him.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked, whilst they were halfway through dinner.

It had started back when Tezuka had been in first year and Kikumaru had been upset that Fuji wouldn’t be able to open his presents with his friends. So, they’d all agreed not to open their presents when they woke up and, after breakfast, they’d found an empty classroom and opened their presents together. 

Echizen seemed oddly enthusiastic when Tezuka had explained this and was quite keen to carry on the short tradition.

Tezuka let Echizen choose what they should do that evening, as it was his birthday, so they went to the library and read, occasionally sharing an amusing or interesting line.

* * *

 

Tezuka awoke the next morning to a pile of presents at the foot of his bed and clear blue skies outside (he’d had to shield his eyes from the sun reflecting off the snow when he’d looked outside). He dressed and went down for breakfast and had long finished eating and was reading his book when Echizen finally appeared, looking very tired.

“Did you sleep well?” Tezuka asked politely when Echizen sat down next to him and started automatically serving himself breakfast.

Echizen made a noise that could either be affirmative or negative then started eating his cereal.

After eating, Echizen was a bit more awake. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry Christmas,” Tezuka said, putting his book down, “shall we find a room? For opening presents,” he added a bit too quickly.

Echizen didn’t seem to notice, he just nodded and said, “sure.”

All of the classrooms were empty, as one would expect on Christmas Day, so they picked one with a large window looking down over the snow covered grounds and to the lake, then when to get their presents from their rooms.

It was much quieter than the previous years, almost awkward as they dragged a couple of desks over to the window and set them at an angle so that they could see each other and see out of the window.

Tezuka recognised a lot of the gifts Echizen had received yesterday in his pile and wondered why he had kept them. He supposed it must be because they were joint birthday and Christmas presents, so Echizen decided to keep them till Christmas.

“How does this work?” Echizen asked, “do we open them together or one at a time?”

“Normally we do it one at a time,” Tezuka replied, “but we could do them together if you would prefer.”

“Don’t care,” Echizen shrugged, “let’s stick with tradition.”

Tezuka nodded, “you go first,” he suggested and Echizen complied, picking up a present wrapped in green paper with little tennis balls on.

“It’s from my parents,” Echizen muttered, pulling off the paper to reveal a box of chocolate frogs.

They continued like this, Echizen gaining a large amount of sweets and tennis gear and Tezuka receiving mainly books. Tezuka reached for a large, unusually shaped present wrapped in plain light blue paper next.

“Wait!” Echizen said and Tezuka stopped and gave him a questioning look. “That one’s from me,” he got up and picked it up.

“Should I give you my present?” Tezuka asked and Echizen blushed.

“If you want.”

Tezuka found his present for Echizen and went to stand by the other boy, who was still red and not looking at him. 

“Merry Christmas, Echizen,” Tezuka said, handing over the present, wrapped in red paper with little snitches printed all over it.

“Thanks,” Echizen said, taking the present and looking him in the eyes, “Merry Christmas.”

He gave Tezuka a brilliant smile that Tezuka privately thought was better than any present he could ever receive and handed over Tezuka’s present.

Tezuka opened it and found himself holding his very own tennis racquet. It was white with light blue grip and looked pretty expensive. “Echizen-,” he started.

“You need your own racquet so you can practice,” Echizen told him, “thank you for the book,” he added with a smirk, holding up the book about Quidditch tactics Tezuka had given him, “it’ll be really useful.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Tezuka said, trying the racquet in his hand and finding it felt much better than any of the ones the Room of Requirement had created. “Thank you very much for this, Echizen.”

They spent the rest of the morning breaking in Tezuka’s new tennis racquet, Tezuka managing to score more points against Echizen than he ever had before. 

Afterwards, they showered in the showers that conveniently appeared in the room when Echizen mentioned them and went down to the Great Hall for Christmas Dinner.

There was only one table in the hall, smaller than usual and groaning under the weight of the piles of food on the table. Tezuka realised that it wasn’t just students around the table, but teachers as well.

Echizen went to sit in spot as far away from as many teachers as possible and Tezuka joined him. There was polite conversation around the table, mostly because the students were too scared to say anything with all the teachers there.

“Happy Christmas everyone,” a girlish voice said behind Tezuka and he spun around to see Umbridge walking towards them.

_ Don’t sit with us, _ Tezuka thought,  _ don’t sit with us! _

Umbridge sat next to Echizen and Tezuka thought a word that he would never say out loud. He saw Echizen stiffen next to him and look at his hand where the words that had been carved into hadn’t quite faded yet. The anger boiled up inside Tezuka again, but he squashed it down and picked up one of the wizard crackers, offering an end to Echizen. Echizen took his end and they pulled it.

The resulting bang made Umbridge jump out of her seat in shock, giving Tezuka a sick sense of satisfaction. She turned on them and Tezuka was sure that she was going to give them detention. Thankfully, Dumbledore pacified her before she could do anything and Tezuka gave the headmaster a small smile of thanks.

The cracker gave them a rainbow coloured baseball hat that trailed sparkles after it and a small red fish that shouted fortunes when someone held it. 

Echizen looked at it with interest, “we only get ones made out of plastic at home,” he said and Tezuka had no idea what he was talking about. 

He picked up the fish and it squeaked, “love is coming your way.” He dropped it quickly, but couldn’t think too long about the fish’s fortune as Echizen had shoved the baseball hat on his head.

“Now you’re a proper tennis player,” Echizen laughed as Tezuka’s head trailed sparkles as he turned to look at him.

Tezuka looked around the table and saw a straw boater with a large bow on the back that had been abandoned by a Slytherin student. He grabbed it and fought to get it on Echizen’s head. He eventually won and Echizen glared up at him, the hat made him look a lot cuter.

They tucked into their lunch, Tezuka keeping an eye on Echizen to make sure he didn’t just eat meat and roast potatoes.

“You need to eat some vegetables,” Tezuka said, spooning some sprouts onto Echizen’s plate.

“I don’t like them,” Echizen said, but picked one up on his fork anyway and ate it. “I don’t like them when my mum cooks them,” he refined his statement.

They were so full after lunch that all they wanted to do was sit around and do nothing. Unfortunately, the comfortable seats in their common rooms would mean spending the afternoon apart and neither really wanted to do that. In the end, they went to the library and spent the afternoon reading together. Neither of them remembered to take their hats off till they went to bed.

They fell into a steady routine over the rest of the holiday of tennis, reading and taking walks around the grounds through the paths one of the teachers had melted in the snow, with the occasional flying practice when the wind died down.

It was almost a shame when the holiday ended. Tezuka was more than happy to see his friends back, with their tales of their holidays, but the start of lessons heralded an end to the everyday tennis.

If Tezuka had been expecting a peaceful start to the term, he would have been very disappointed as the first Daily Prophet of the term brought news of the escape of ten death eaters. 

The Great Hall was all abuzz with the news, students shuffling around to discuss the news with their friends and the teachers sharing grave looks with each other.

Tezuka just felt sick. He knew all the names, had heard the horrors they’d committed during the war. And now they were free. Free to hurt and kill people all over again.

He looked around the hall, searching out his friends. Next to him, Inui was reading the article, a shocked look on his face. Fuji had left the Slytherin table and was now sat next to Kawamura, a lot closer than he would normally dare to and looked as if he was trying to reassure his friend (or possibly boyfriend, Tezuka didn’t know how they labelled their relationship). On the Gryffindor table, the rest of his friends were huddled around a paper, explaining what had happened to Echizen, who was looking as sick as Tezuka felt.

He looked back down at his cornflakes and didn't feel hungry anymore.

For the next week all anyone could talk about was the death eater's escape. Tezuka wished they wouldn't, the speculation had got so out of control that no conversation about it could offer anything of value.

“Do you think the dementors helped those death eaters escape?” Echizen asked during one of their tennis lessons.

Tezuka nodded and wished it wasn’t true. The dementors had been on the Hogwarts Express in his first year, he never wanted to meet them again.

* * *

  
  


Soon February rolled around and, in the lead up to Valentine’s Day, no less than four girls asked him out, all of whom Tezuka had politely turned down.

Fuji kept giving him amused looks all through their group study session in the library and Tezuka had no idea what the joke was. He was used to Fuji doing it though, so he easily ignored him as he went through Momoshiro’s potions essay, correcting his mistakes.

“On Valentine’s Day, Takashi and I are going into Hogsmeade together,” Fuji announced suddenly. Tezuka looked up from Momoshiro’s essay to see Fuji looking at them all, his usual calm expression on his face but a slight edge in his eyes. Next to him, Kawamura’s face was a delicate shade of red.

“On a date?” Kikumaru asked and his face lit up when Fujii nodded, “so are me and Oishi!” His raised voice caused everyone in their general direction to look their way and Oishi to shush him.

Tezuka wondered if ‘congratulations’ was the right word for the situation. Even he, dense to most romantic situations, had seen how much Oishi and Kikumaru liked each other. He was just glad four of his friends had found someone.

It looked like Momoshiro was taking a while to process this new information, but an elbow in his side from Kaidoh sprung him to his senses.

“That’s cool,” he said and then turned to Tezuka, “are you going to Hogsmeade with anyone?”

Tezuka almost sighed, but controlled himself. Next to him, Kikumaru had stopped organising a double date with Fuji to see his reply.

“I’m not,” Tezuka replied, “I have other plans.”

Apparently, this was completely the wrong thing to say as his friends practically jumped on him, demanding to know his plans. 

“He’s tutoring me in potions,” Echizen said, suddenly and loudly and Tezuka was relieved that he’d come up with a lie for him. That didn’t stop Fuji smiling at him knowingly.

He did have plans with Echizen. The younger boy had been with him when the first girl had asked him out and had stepped in to snap that Tezuka had plans with  _ him _ that day. And so, they’d set up another tennis lesson for Valentine’s Day.

* * *

 

“We should tell them,” Tezuka said, as they lay on the grass in the Room of Requirement a few days later during, hot and sweaty after their tennis session.

“What? That we’re having a secret tennis affair?” Echizen replied.

Tezuka turned his head to the side and saw Echizen grinning at him. “That as well.”

Echizen snorted, “I like it just being the two of us.”

Tezuka nodded. At least Echizen was on the same wavelength as him. “When they find out there will be hell to pay.”

Echizen shrugged, “neither of us are gonna tell them, how are they gonna find out?”

“They will find out,” Tezuka told him.

“Let them,” Echizen’s voice was barely a whisper, reaching out and caressing Tezuka’s cheek.

Tezuka blinked, not sure how to read this situation at all. But then, Ryoma was on top of him, kissing him. Tezuka was stunned for a couple of moments, but then came to his sense and wrapped his arms around Ryoma, kissing him back.

Something heavy landed on his chest and Tezuka woke up to find one of his roommate’s cats sitting on his stomach looking pleased with itself.

Tezuka shooed it off and then flopped back down on his bed, the memory of the dream rushing back to him. 

He didn’t even know why he was dreaming it. Their Valentine’s Day tennis session over a week ago had ended with no kissing whatsoever and no indication from either Echizen or himself that either wanted kissing to become involved. They’d just played tennis and wondered how the double date was going.

They’d found out later that the double date had gone very well, until the couples split up to spend the afternoon alone together at which point Fuji and Kawamura had ended up meeting with Draco Malfoy and his friends. Fuji was now in detention for a week for hexing Malfoy. He hadn’t told anyone why he had hexed his fellow Slytherin, but Tezuka could guess that Malfoy had made an issue of Fuji dating a boy from another house. He wasn’t sure what part of that Malfoy would object to more, especially since Kawamura was from a muggle family. The only thing he’d heard Fuji say about the subject was how he wished there had been less witnesses, as it was, he’d only performed a minor hex on Malfoy. Tezuka dreaded to think what Fuji would have done had he been alone with Malfoy.

He rolled over and looked at the clock on his bedside table, it was almost 6AM. He decided he may as well get up and finish his Ancient Runes homework before breakfast.

The common room was completely empty apart from a cat curled up on the comfiest chair. Tezuka shooed it off, unsure whether he was glad or not that his roommate's cat had woken him up the morning and sat down, pulling out his books and got to work.

Slowly, a trickle of students started to make their way through the common room to the Great Hall for breakfast. He’d just finished his essay when Inui appeared at his table and they went down to breakfast together.

He ate his breakfast quite peacefully, only slightly distracted by the Gryffindor table being swamped with owls and a kerfuffle kicked up by Umbridge. But then, by mid-morning another Educational Decree had been passed, banning students from possessing The Quibbler. Tezuka looked at the sign stuck to the door of the Transfiguration classroom with puzzlement. The Quibbler was a terrible magazine, but he couldn’t see why students owning a copy needed to be expelled.

The mystery was solved for Tezuka at lunchtime when Fuji dragged him into a broom cupboard and showed him the offending article, an interview with Harry Potter where he gave an account of the night of You-Know-Who’s return and named death-eaters. 

“A lot of their children are in Slytherin,” He said, pointing at the names of the death-eaters.

“They are,” Fuji said gleefully, “they’re so angry right now, it’s hilarious.”

“Be careful,” Tezuka warned him sternly, “please don’t get yourself into anymore trouble.”

“I won’t,” Fuji promised, tapping the article with his wand. It went blank and just looked like a piece of parchment.

He spent the rest of the day worrying about Fuji. He knew his friend could easily take care of himself, but if he didn't want to know how many people he could defend against before he became overwhelmed.

However, it wasn’t Fuji who got into trouble.

The next day at breakfast, two large eagle owls flew down to Echizen, each delivering a big parcel. Tezuka watched with some interest as Echizen untied the parcels, gave each owl a pet on the head and a bit of bacon before sending them off. On either side of him, Inui and Fuji were also taking an interest as well.

“I wonder what he’s got,” Fuji said.

“The size of the packages suggests it may be magazines,” Inui replied and Tezuka wondered how he could tell from here.

Fuji glanced up to the teacher’s table, “here comes trouble.”

Tezuka followed his eyes and saw Umbridge coming down off the table and walking towards the Gryffindor table. Before he knew what he was doing, he was on his feet and walking to the table as well. He ended up standing at Echizen’s side, wondering why he was even there.

“What’s all this then?” Umbridge said sweetly, eyeing up Echizen’s parcel.

“I got post,” Echizen replied bluntly, “is that a crime now?” Tezuka cringed, did Echizen want detention?

“Open it for me,” She said, her voice still sweet and girlish.

Echizen glared at her and Tezuka willed him to just open his mail. Surely it couldn’t be worth another detention. “Echizen,” he said, prompting him into obeying. 

Then, Echizen started to open his parcels.

Tezuka internally breathed a sigh of relief until Umbridge turned on him. “And what did you want, Mr. Tezuka?” She asked.

“They’re for him,” Echizen jumped in, indicating the magazines that were in the package he’d opened.

“What are these?” Umbridge asked, grabbing one and holding it up.

“A magazine,” Tezuka said, “about tennis judging by the front of it.”

“Tennis?”

“It’s a muggle sport,” Echizen explained, “Tezuka was interested in it, so I got my parents to send these.”

Tezuka chest felt warm at the thought of Echizen thinking about him, but it was soon extinguished by the look on Umbridge’s face.

“I’m afraid I will have to take these off you,” She said, “and check that they are not disguised copies of The Quibbler.” She waved her wand and the magazines, along with the unopened package flew into the air.

“Can’t I have the letter from my mum?” Echizen asked, pointing to the letter stuck to the unopened parcel.

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Echizen. Not until I can be sure you haven’t smuggled in copies of an illegal magazine.” And with that, she left, leaving Echizen seething at the table.

“I hate her,” he growled under his breath, before turning to Tezuka, “sorry Tezuka, I guess I can’t give you those magazines now.”

“It’s fine,” Tezuka replied, “thank you for thinking of me.”

Echizen shrugged, “I figured you’d appreciate them. Some of the articles are rubbish, but some of them are pretty good.”

“She might give them back,” Momoshiro said, looking doubtful. “Anyway, what’s tennis?”

Tezuka left Echizen to explain his sport to his Gryffindor friends, resigning himself to the fact their tennis sessions would soon have a few more members.

* * *

 

As the weeks past, it became very obvious that Echizen was never going to get his magazines back. Although judging by his lack of expulsion, Umbridge hadn’t found anything wrong with them.

“Maybe she’s developed an interest in tennis,” Momoshiro joked one day when they were all studying together in the library.

Tezuka was very surprised when he turned up at the next tennis session to find only Echizen waiting for him.

“If anyone else comes we’ll become a group,” Echizen explained as they warmed up, “I didn’t tell them about this, but I said I’d show them when it gets warm enough to play outside.”

Fuji, meanwhile, had been the only one to pick up on the fact that the magazines had been for Tezuka. “I didn’t know you were into muggle sports,” he said airily one day. Tezuka brushed him off, but Fuji had probably figured out everything. 

At least he was keeping it a secret for now though, Tezuka thought. Although he could expect some teasing coming his way as soon as Fuji (who, like Tezuka, was also from a pureblood family) found out what tennis was.

Tezuka was just glad than no lasting trouble had come to himself or Echizen, although Umbridge did seem to be watching him closely now. It was a good thing that Tezuka was a model student and gave her no excuse to put him in detention. She didn't know that he was taking part in an illegal club and that was more than enough for Tezuka as she gave back his homework with full marks and a forced smile.

The DA meetings were going well, they were moving onto patronuses something that Tezuka was very interested in, especially since it seemed the dementors were now the enemy. 

Fuji got the hang of them pretty quickly, smiling happily to himself as his dolphin patronus swam around the room. Echizen had been the next member of their group of friends to manage it, conjuring up a wildcat patronus. 

The rest of them took another couple of sessions to cast their patronuses. Kaidoh's, of course, was a cobra and Momoshiro's a bear.

Tezuka was having a bit of trouble with the spell, only able to summon a puff of white smoke.

"You need to think of something happy," Echizen told him, unhelpfully. Tezuka was well aware of how the spell was cast, he just didn't seem to be thinking of happy enough things.

"What did you think about?" Tezuka asked.

Echizen paused in replying, distracted by a cry of joy as Kikumaru summoned his kangaroo patronus. 

"Tennis," Echizen replied nonspecifically, watching Kikumaru now trying to encourage Oishi.  

_ Of course _ , Tezuka thought and went back to pondering happy memories. 

He'd tried all kinds of things, from getting large amounts of house points to receiving his Hogwarts letter. He knew he had lots of happy memories, it was just summoning the feeling up that he was having issues with. 

A traitorous voice in the back of his head dragged up the incident over Christmas when Echizen had kissed the back of his hand and when he'd laid on top of him in the snow. Tezuka pushed them away, determined not to use  _ that _ to summon his patronus.

But now that his mind was on Echizen, he couldn't help but remember the rush he'd felt scoring a point against him.

He tried to bring up all the feelings of happiness and pride and then cast the spell. 

A silvery eagle soared out of his wand and around the room.

"Awesome!" He heard Momoshiro cry when he saw the patronus. He glanced over at Echizen, who had a smug look on his face.

"Congrats," he said.

"We shouldn't let our guard down," Tezuka told him, "I've met a dementor, they make it seem like there is no happiness in the world."

Echizen just smirked at him.

The door opened and Tezuka saw a house elf walk in, trembling from head to toe. The elf made his way over to Harry Potter, looking as though he was trying hard not to hurt himself. 

He could only catch bits of the conversation between Potter and the elf, but what he heard made his heart sink.  _ She _ had found them.

"What are you waiting for?!" Potter bellowed, "run!!"

Echizen's hand closed around his wrist and pulled him towards the door. He didn't need further prompting. 

There was a bottleneck at the door, but he soon found his way through and were sprinting down the corridor with his friends around him.

"In here!" Fuji, who was at the head of the group, cried, pointing at a tapestry.

Behind the tapestry was a small alcove that only just fit the eight of them. 

Tezuka found himself at the back, Inui pushing into his back and trying not to crush Echizen into the wall in front of him. He tried to ignore just how Echizen's body fit against his own and how warm the other boy was, or maybe it was himself that was getting warm. He stared hard at the wall in front of him and listened to the whispers of his friends around him as the ones at the front peered through the tapestry and relayed what was happening outside.

"Some Slytherins just ran past," Kikumaru whispered.

"They'll be searching for us," Fuji said from somewhere on his left, "most of them like Umbridge."

Echizen shifted slightly and Tezuka felt the electricity spark through his body. He glanced down at him and saw Echizen looking up at him through his eyelashes. He went back to staring at the wall.

"Should we make a run for it?" Oishi asked.

"The library is only five minutes away," Inui said, "if we walk fast."

"Running would make us look suspicious," Kaidoh hissed.

"Very true," Inui agreed, "and being out of breath in the library would also look suspicious."

"Are the corridors clear?" Tezuka asked.

"At the moment," Fuji replied.

"Then we should go." Tezuka said firmly, "Gryffindors take Echizen back, he's out past curfew. " He ignored Echizen's protests, "the rest of us will go to the library."

After a quick check of the corridor, they left and split into two groups. Tezuka's group got to the library safely and he really hoped that the Gryffindors had too.

* * *

 

“Did you see the notice?” Fuji asked Tezuka the moment he sat down at breakfast the next day.

“Of course,” Tezuka replied gravely. 

Dumbledore was gone and Umbridge had taken over the school. He’d had to read the new educational decree twice before it had sunk in.

“I heard that Dumbledore gave Fudge another head,” Kikumaru said, appearing at Fuji’s side, “and he’s currently in the hospital wing. Do you think we could pull a sicky and see?”

“No,” Tezuka told him bluntly.

“It just sounds like a rumour,” Fuji said, “does anyone know what actually happened?”

“The only students there were Harry Potter and Marietta Edgecombe,” Inui said, “so only they would be able to tell us the truth.”

“That’s  _ boring _ though,” Kikumaru moaned, “Fuji, let's go up to the hospital wing to see!”

Fuji laughed, “let me finish my breakfast first.”

Tezuka was informed by Fuji at lunch that Fudge was not in the hospital wing and they had found no evidence that Dumbledore had given him an extra head.

* * *

 

They were all eating lunch in the Great Hall when the first explosion happened.

“What was that?” Momoshiro asked, leaning back to talk to the Ravenclaws.

“I have no idea,” Tezuka replied, looking to Inui, who shrugged.

A couple of teachers ventured towards the door as the explosions got more and more regular and then, a massive dragon made of shimmering sparks erupted into the hall, circling and crackling. It was followed by a host of other fireworks, all loud and bright.

For a moment, there was silence, other than the fireworks, as everyone watched them nervously, wondering whether or not to run.

At Tezuka’s side, Fuji was grinning, obviously sensing the chaos that was to come.

He wasn’t wrong. The fireworks terrorised the castle for the rest of the day, although only Umbridge and Filtch trying to get rid of them.

“They’re very pretty,” Fuji said airily as a catherine wheel soared above them at dinner, whistling loudly.

Tezuka nodded, his eyes not on the fireworks at all, but on Echizen whose eyes were reflecting the purple sparks. He blinked and smirked when he noticed Tezuka staring at him.

Tezuka quickly looked away just as Umbridge,tried to vanish the catherine wheel and it exploded into ten.

* * *

 

Tezuka spent Easter with his family at home. When he told his parents about the DA they’d both shared a look and smiled.

“That’s not like you, Kunimitsu,” his father had said, unable to keep the amused smile off his face and clapping his son on the shoulder. “You’re more like your mother than I’d thought.”

His mother had laughed and confessed that during her time at Hogwarts she’d been in more than a few detentions and Tezuka wondered why she’d never mentioned this before.

“I once set a teacher’s hat on fire,” she admitted, grinning and giggling like a schoolgirl, “it was an accident and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Your father jumped in and put it out before they noticed,” she gave her husband an affectionate look. “That’s how we met.”

Tezuka‘s grandfather was less approving than his parents. He’d given Tezuka the same stern look that had, when Tezuka was much younger, made him cry because he’d felt that he’d let his grandfather down. His grandfather’s expression had softened considerably when he’d explained how appalling Umbridge’s teaching was and what she was trying to do to the school.

“I will be having a word with the minister,” he said gruffly, “you cannot do magic based on theory alone.”

His words had created some hope in Tezuka. His grandfather was a famous auror, famous for bringing in the most dangerous dark wizards using only legal spells. If anyone knew about how Defence Against the Dark Arts should be taught, it was him.

* * *

 

The problem with being in an illegal club, Tezuka soon realised once he returned back to school, was that once it blew up in your face you were constantly on your guard. He spent his defence against the dark arts lessons with his head firmly in his book, not looking at Umbridge. She had to know who the members of the DA were and the fact she hadn't put them all in detention or expelled them frightened Tezuka. What was she planning for them? 

Tezuka tried his best to keep as far away from her as possible, only venturing down the corridor her office was on if he absolutely had to. 

He'd been walking to meet his friends in the classroom they sometimes met up in to do homework when he stumbled across Umbridge, who seemed to be trying to convince something to come out from behind a suit of armour. From where he was he couldn't see what it was and could only hear that it was hissing, probably just another student prank.

He tried to sidle past Umbridge and the mystery creature without being noticed. But luck didn't seem to be on his side that day and the mystery creature shot out from behind the suit of armour and started to climb up his back, it's claws digging in painfully until it reached his shoulder. Turning his head, he saw he now had a large, fluffy cat perched on his shoulder.

"Oh hello Mr. Tezuka," Umbridge said sweetly, "is that your cat?" She tried to approach him, but the cat hissed menacingly at her, obviously it had good taste in people.

"No," Tezuka said, "but it's my friend's." He lied, not wanting to hand the cat over to her. "I'll take it back to them now."

Umbridge gave him a sweet smile that chilled him down to the bones, "well, run along then."

Tezuka didn't need to he told twice. As he went, he managed to convince the cat to come down off his shoulder and into his arms. The cat was mainly a creamy white, apart from its brown face, ears, feet and tail. Tezuka didn't know anything about cat breeds so he would have described it as a fluffy siamese. He didn't recognise it from the Ravenclaw common room and hoped one of his friends would know who it belonged to.

Now they were out of sight of Umbridge, the cat had completely calmed down and was looking up curiously at Tezuka with its big blue eyes.

He carefully stroked it and the cat purred happily, giving him enough confidence to pet it more. He wasn't good with cats or animals in general, but this one seemed nice.

He was getting a lot of amused looks as he walked through the corridors, especially when the cat decided it wanted to sit on his shoulder again.

"Don't do that," Tezuka said as the cat put its front paws on his shoulder and looked behind him. He was scared that it was going to jump off and then he'd have to catch it again. 

Thankfully, the cat stayed on Tezuka all the way to the classroom, even if it did climb onto his head and walk across his shoulders. 

His friends' faces were quite a picture when he walked into the classroom with a cat on his shoulder.

"You have a cat," Fuji said, highly amused, "did it just jump on you?"

"No," Tezuka said picking the cat off his shoulder and putting it on the floor.

"That's Echizen's cat, right?" Momoshiro asked as the cat trotted happily over to Kaidoh.

"It is," Kikumaru said and Fuji's face lit up gleefully. Kikumaru bent down and tried to tempt the cat, who was twisting through a very flustered Kaidoh's legs. "Karupin, come over here!"

Of course it was Echizen's cat. Of all the cats he could have rescued it had to be Echizen's. And now he was going to have to deal with Fuji, who was looking at him, smiling brightly.

"How did you come to have Echizen's cat on your shoulder?" He asked, clearly looking forward to the answer.

"Umbridge was trying to get it out from behind a suit of armour and it jumped into my arms. I thought it would be cruel to give it back to her," Tezuka replied.

"First you save Echizen and now his cat," Fuji said, "you're quite a hero."

Thankfully, the rest of his friends were too interested in playing with Karupin (who was now in Kaidoh's lap) to hear Fuji.

Tezuka ignored him and pulled out his books, hoping Echizen would be joining them and collect his cat. A small part of him was hoping he'd thank Tezuka with a cute little blush on his face.

"I'm surprised Umbridge let you take him," Oishi said, "you didn't get in trouble, did you?"

"No," Tezuka assured him, "I told her I knew who he belonged to."

"I didn't think  _ you _ would ever lie to a teacher," Fuji said.

"I felt sorry for the cat, he wasn't happy."

Fuji chuckled, "I bet he wasn't."

Echizen finally joined them half an hour later.

"Snape made me stay behind and clean up the mess everyone made," he grumbled as he sat down. "I wasn't the one who put snake venom in the potions and made them explode!"

"Snape hates Gryffindors," Momoshiro comforted him, "he once made me put all the ingredients in the cupboard into alphabetical order!"

"Only because you fell into the cupboard and knocked them everywhere," Kaidoh muttered.

Momoshiro was about to start on Kaidoh, but Echizen just noticed Karupin on his knee. 

"Why's Karupin here?" He asked. The cat finally decided to go see his master, hopping from Kaidoh's lap and trotting over to Echizen.

"Umbridge was scaring him," Fuji said, "and Tezuka saved him and brought him here."

Echizen picked up the cat and hugged him. Tezuka couldn't help notice how cute he was with his arms full of fluffy cat.

"Thanks Tezuka," he said, without a hint of pink on his cheeks. "I guess I owe you one."

Tezuka made sure not to look at Fuji, but knew the exact smirk he'd have on his face. He hoped he never had to hear what Fuji was thinking right now.

"It was no trouble," Tezuka replied, "I'm glad I found his owner so easily."

“I’m surprised Tezuka’s not in detention right now,” Kikumaru said, “he stole her prey from her.”

“It’s a good thing I’m a model student.”

“One who took part in an illegal student organisation,” Fuji added, quickly shushed by Kikumaru.

“ _ Fuji _ , the walls have ears!”

“Oh yes,” Fuji said, “how could I possibly forget that Hogwarts has been turned into a dictatorship?”

The introduction of the Inquisitorial Squad had not helped Fuji’s already low standing in Slytherin. The squad didn’t take points from Fuji, as that would be counter productive, but they were trying their best to turn his life into a nightmare. Fuji himself was taking it very well, although he often tried to be near teachers whenever he saw a squad member, just in case.

Suddenly, from outside the door in the corridor, it sounded like a small stampede was running past the classroom.

“What on earth?” Oishi said as they all looked at each other in confusion. All but two. Fuji and Kikumaru shared a look and then sprang to their feet, running out the classroom to join the stampede with Momoshiro and Inui (muttering something about data) on their tail.

“Umbridge is probably making a show over sacking someone else,” Kawamura sighed. 

Tezuka nodded, he was quite interested into see who it was, but had watched Trelawney's sacking and didn’t think he could watch another.

“Who do you think it is this time?” Oishi asked.

“Probably Hagrid,” Kawamura replied, “he’s… well he’s not the greatest teacher.”

“I hope it’s Snape,” Echizen said.

“It won’t be,” Tezuka told him sternly, “Professor Snape is a good teacher.”

“Unless you’re Gryffindor,” Echizen muttered under his breath.

“I’m going to go and see what’s happening,” Kaidoh said gruffly, getting up and following after the others.

“I’m not, I’ve got a potions essay to finish,” Echizen said, pulling parchment and a quill out of his bag. 

“I’m sure we’ll find out from the others,” Tezuka said, watching Echizen write with one hand and pet Karupin with the other. It seemed like a well practiced motion.

“You should add the porcupine quills before taking it off the boil,” Tezuka said, looking over at Echizen’s essay.

“Thanks,” Echizen said and corrected his mistake.

“It’ll be exams soon,” Oishi said, “have either of you started studying?”

“I spent most of Easter studying,” Kawamura said and Tezuka nodded in agreement.

“I stayed at Eiji’s over the holidays, so I didn’t get too much done,” Oishi admitted, starting to look very stressed.

“Fuji and I are revising in the library during lunch starting tomorrow,” Tezuka said, “you’re all welcome to join us.” It would save him from being teased for being ‘Echizen’s knight in shining armour.’

“That’d be great!” Oishi said, “I’ll let Eiji know when I next see him.”

They later found out that the commotion had been caused by the Weasley twins who had created a swamp near Umbridge’s office and then quit the school in a glorious display of disobedience. Tezuka found he didn’t really mind the inconvenience of the swamp when he saw the trouble it was causing Filch and Umbridge.

With only a month left before the exams started, everyone was knuckling down to revision. Tezuka was quite happy to spend all day in the library, he enjoyed being surrounded by the warm silence and soft whispering. But some of his friends, Kikumaru and Momoshiro in particular, hated it.

“I never want to see a book again,” Kikumaru whined, resting his forehead on the transfiguration book in front of him.

“I don’t think I can read anymore,” Momoshiro said, “the words just aren’t getting into my brain.”

“Maybe you need a bigger brain,” Echizen suggested innocently.

“Hey!” Momoshiro shouted and the entire library turned to look at him. He looked embarrassed and apologised.

“Maybe we need a better way of revising,” Oishi suggested to them.

Tezuka frowned to himself, he’d always found taking notes from books and re-reading the notes from lessons to be the most effective way of revision.

“We could go outside, but it’s raining,” Kikumaru moaned and they all looked out the window where the rain was running down the glass.

"Maybe it'll be better weather tomorrow," Oishi said.

"This is why wizards need TVs," Echizen said, "you can find out the weather really quickly."

"TV?" Momoshiro asked, "what's that?"

"It like radio, but with images as well as sound. You can either watch the weather after the news or look it up on ceefax," Echizen explained as if it were completely obvious.

"We do get weather reports in the newspaper," Tezuka said curtly. "It is going to be sunny tomorrow."

"I guess," Echizen shrugged, "you can watch whole tennis matches on TV though."

“You still need to show us what tennis is!” Momoshiro cried, attracting the attention of the library again.

“Yeah, Shorty!” Kikumaru jumped in.

“Be quiet, you two,” Tezuka snapped at them.

“I’ll show you after exams,” Echizen said, lazily turning the page of his textbook, “I’ll give you a full demonstration with Tezuka.”

“Tezuka, eh?” Fuji said, turning his gaze towards him. Tezuka felt like shutting his head in his textbook. Or shutting Echizen’s in it.

“He’s my student,” Echizen said, smirking at Tezuka.

“Is he a good student?” Fuji asked and Tezuka could practically feel the glee radiating from him.

“Yeah,” Echizen shrugged, “I guess he is.”

Praise indeed from Echizen Ryoma.

“Wait! Have you been teaching Tezuka tennis?” Kikumaru suddenly cottoned on, “that’s not fair! Where do you train?”

“It’s a secret,” Echizen replied.

“Secret tennis meetings, hmm?” Fuji asked, smiling far too brightly. Next to him, Inui was scribbling away in a notebook.

Tezuka focused firmly on his potions notes and tuned out the conversation as much as possible. Echizen seemed perfectly fine fending off the questions from their overly curious friends. 

A few minutes later they were all kicked out the library for being too loud.

* * *

 

Revising outside, Tezuka decided, was just as nice as revising in the library. If a lot less quiet.

The freedom of the outdoors gave all his friends the chance to be as noisy and active as possible. He was sat with Fuji, Oishi and Inui under a tree, whilst Momoshiro and Kikumaru lay in the sun, holding each other’s textbooks and loudly quizzing each other. Kaidoh sat near them, reading his own textbook and joining in with Kikumaru’s mocking of Momoshiro’s wrong answers. Kawamura would be joining them later, as he had Potions and Echizen should be joining them soon, as soon as Umbridge let his class out of their lesson.

“There’s Echizen,” Fuji said, pointing across the field to a figure making his way towards them.

“Good,” Tezuka said, not looking up from his Herbology book, knowing that if he did Fuji would come up with  _ something _ to tease him with. Although, he was probably going to get teased either way.

Echizen ignored Kikumaru and Momoshiro’s calls for him to join them and walked straight over to Tezuka and Fuji, dropping his bag and squeezing into the space between them, which was far too small for him.

Fuji laughed and shifted up to let Echizen in, “Look Tezuka, Echizen wants to cuddle with us,” he said, sounding positively delighted.

“He’s not a dog, Fuji,” Tezuka chided him, shifting over so that Echizen’s warm body wasn’t pressed up against him.

Echizen just cast Fuji a glare as he started pulling out his textbooks and Fuji laughed again.

“Maybe it’s just you don’t want to cuddle with  _ me _ ,” he said and Tezuka resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“You don’t want to cuddle with me either,” Echizen snapped, “I’m not tall or muscular enough.”

“But you’re so cute,” Fuji said, “I just want to eat you up.”

“Please don’t,” Echizen replied.

“Fuji, you’re here to revise,” Tezuka reminded him, “not to harass Echizen.”

Tezuka pretended he didn’t see Echizen sticking his tongue out at Fuji or the way he shifted closer to Tezuka.

“I’m sure you’re not taking the 3rd year Astronomy exam, Echizen,” Tezuka said, about half an hour later having caught Echizen peeking at his notes for the fourth time.

“It doesn’t look that hard,” Echizen shrugged. 

_ Of course he’d say that _ , Tezuka thought. “Would you like me to take you through it?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fuji’s smirk.

“Maybe later,” Echizen said, “I’ve got potions to study.”

“If you need any help-” Tezuka started, but was cut off by Kikumaru.

“Shorty, when are you going to show us tennis?!” He shouted.

“When exams are over,” Echizen replied, “I have to pass them or I’m not coming back next year.”

“But-” Kikumaru whined.

“Eiji,” Oishi cut in, “he really does have to study for exams.”

“After exams are over I’ll beat all of you,” Echizen promised.

* * *

 

Echizen may not have wanted to show the others tennis, but he kept up the not-so-secret lessons with Tezuka.

“It helps me relax,” he explained when Tezuka suggested stopping for the exams.

Tezuka nodded, understanding entirely what Echizen meant. It was nice to have a couple of hours a week where they could let off steam and do something physical, rather than spend the evening hunched over revision.  

“When the exams start, it would be best if we take a break,” Tezuka said, “they are important, it wouldn’t do to let our guards down and fail them because of tennis.”

Echizen grumpily agreed, “but if we have some spare time, we should play,” he said and Tezuka agreed, doubting they’d ever have any spare time.

Tezuka may be improving at tennis, but Echizen was still so much better. Tezuka could now return a lot of Echizen’s shots, although the other boy always found a way around him to score.

* * *

 

The exams swiftly approached, Momoshiro and Kikumaru had taken to repeating ‘it’s just a week of exams’ under their breath as they poured over their textbooks. Tezuka was quietly confident about the upcoming exams, although he still studied diligently, it would not do to let his guard down.

The teachers soon started revision lessons and reminding them that they should all be revising hard. Oishi was in his usual pre-exam worrying phase, frantically scrambling for textbooks when he remembered something he had forgotten or was unsure of. Inui had made them all revision timetables, which some of them actually stuck to. Tezuka had his own revision plans, but had taken into account Inui’s suggestions- he had spent a lot of time working it out.

“Tezuka!” 

Tezuka turned and saw Echizen hurrying towards him.

“Echizen,” he greeted him as he caught up.

“Are you free?” Echizen asked. Tezuka nodded, he had been on his way to the library to revise. “Can you help me with potions? Snape’s set a really evil essay.”

“Of course,” Tezuka replied. “An empty classroom might be better,” he said, “then we can talk.”

Echizen grinned, “it’ll be much easier without Pince hovering over us.”

Tezuka didn’t know why he was searching for a completely empty classroom. There were plenty with a couple of other groups in, all pouring over their textbooks and homework. Echizen didn’t suggest using those classrooms either, so Tezuka guessed he had the same thoughts as him.

“What about that one?” Echizen asked, pointing at a closed door.

Tezuka tried the door and found it was locked. He looked at Echizen, who shrugged.

“A teacher probably locked it when they left,” He suggested it, pulling out his wand and tapping the lock, muttering the spell under his breath.

It became abundantly clear why the door had been locked when Tezuka pushed it open. Fuji and Kawamura were locked in what looked like a battle to eat each other’s faces.

In some kind of innate response, Tezuka covered Echizen’s eyes, unable to tear his own away from the scene in front of him. It was almost mesmerising, the way their lips were sliding against each other and the soft, wet noises and sighs filling the room.

Tezuka’s brain was kicked back into action by Echizen clawing at his hand, trying to see what Tezuka was protecting him from. He pulled Echizen away from the classroom whilst trying to push away the unbidden thoughts of what it would be like to have Echizen in his lap- of what it would be like to kiss him like that. 

His heart was pounding out of control and Echizen’s confused, but amused look wasn’t helping him.

“Let’s go to the library,” he said, his voice didn’t sound like his own.

“Yeah, sure,” Echizen replied, looking a little disappointed.

_ Why do I want to kiss him? _ Tezuka thought frantically as they walked.  _ If I try to he’ll push me away and then we won’t be friends anymore! _ The thought sent a shock of fear through him- he didn’t want to lose Echizen.

By the time he reached the library, he decided to suppress all his new found feelings for Echizen. The other boy was 11! He was far too young to be kissing Tezuka or even to have any feelings for Tezuka beyond friendship. Ignoring all of these urges would be the best course of action.

“What did you need help with?” Tezuka asked as they sat down at a spare table.

“Why did you cover up my eyes?” Echizen asked, grinning. “I’ve seen people kiss before.”

Tezuka felt his cheeks turn a delicate shade of pink and he started to inspect the books around him. In all honesty, he’d reacted purely on instinct, not wanting Echizen to see their friends in a compromising position. It had been such a stupid thing to do, Tezuka realised.

“Potions, Echizen,” he replied sternly. Echizen sighed and pulled out his parchment and textbook.

* * *

 

The exams came upon them faster than any of them would have liked. Oishi was almost vibrating with nerves as he desperately scoured his notes whilst they waited to enter the Charms Theory exam.

“Don’t worry, Oishi,” Kikumaru said, clapping him on the shoulder, “you’ll be fine.”

Oishi gave him a weak smile, but continued to try and read through his notes. Tezuka doubted he was taking in anything he was reading. 

The doors to the Great Hall opened and Professor McGonagall walked out. “The exam will begin shortly, please take your seats,” She said and Oishi squeaked pitifully.  

They filed into the hall, muttering ‘good luck’ and keeping their heads down as they found their desks- little islands of solitude in the ocean of the hall.

Tezuka quickly rearranged the desk so that his quills were in a neat line and that his ink bottle and paper were all square to each other and the sides of the desk. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but doing so always put his head in the right space for exams.

Professor McGonagall started to explain the exam rules and Tezuka listened intently even though he’d heard it all before. And then, at exactly 9 o’clock, the exam started.

Tezuka flipped open his paper and began to write.

* * *

  
  


“I hate potions,” Echizen whined. He was sat next to Tezuka at dinner as they tried to make sense of Echizen’s neat, but thoroughly disorganised, notes the evening before his morning exam.

“You appear to be good at it,” Tezuka said, his eyes skimming through one of Echizen’s essays. It was well written and Professor Snape had even given it a good mark.

“Just because I’m good at it doesn’t mean I like it,” Echizen grumbled. “That dungeon is foul and Snape swishing around like a giant bat doesn’t help.”

There was a cough behind them and they turned to see Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle.

“Badmouthing a teacher? That’ll be 40 points from Gryffindor, Echizen,” Malfoy sneered.

Echizen didn’t so much as blink so Malfoy turned on Tezuka.

“I see your family’s taste in friends hasn’t improved.”

Tezuka got to his feet and calmly looked Crabbe and Goyle up and down, his hand gripping his wand tightly in his pocket.

“At least my friends don’t have the combined intelligence of an overripe banana,” Tezuka said quietly. Behind him, Echizen snorted with laughter.

Malfoy’s pale face flushed. “My-”

“Father will hear about this?” Tezuka ignored all his better instincts and cut across him feeling a sick sense of pleasure when Malfoy’s hackles raised.

“At least my father is still in with the Minister,” he snapped, “unlike your grandfather.”

Tezuka didn’t even blink. He knew his grandfather was not the flavour of the month at the Ministry as he was a Dumbledore supporter, but his grandfather was also right and that was far more important. 

“My Grandfather arrested your father once,” Tezuka said, “he can do it again.”

“50 points from Ravenclaw!” Malfoy snapped, flushing even harder when Tezuka didn’t react at all. “And you’d better watch your back, Tezuka! he snapped as he stalked away.

“Wow,” Echizen said, smirking as Tezuka sat down.

“Don’t insult Professor Snape where people can hear you,” Tezuka told him, trying to ignore his inquisitive look. 

“Your grandfather arrested Malfoy’s father?” Echizen asked, “Why?”

Tezuka sighed. “Malfoy’s father was a Death Eater,” he explained.

“That makes sense,” Echizen replied, “how did he get off?”

“He claimed to be under the Imperius Curse,” Tezuka continued, “and donated a lot of money to various causes.”

“The Imperius Curse?”

“It’s a curse that lets you control anyone you want,” Tezuka said, “it is highly illegal,” he added.

“And it was used a lot back then?”

“It was. And there’s no way to tell whether someone was under the influence or not.”

“That sucks,” Echizen muttered.

“It is unfortunate,” Tezuka agreed. 

“Malfoy is the worst,” Echizen huffed just as Fuji joined the table.

“He is,” Fuji said, “I’m thankful everyday that my family are not related in anyway to theirs.”

Echizen looked confused and Tezuka sighed again, knowing exactly what was coming next.

“Malfoy is Tezuka’s second cousin,” Fuji explained, his face breaking into a grin at Echizen’s look of disgust.

“Thankfully, my grandfather disowned that side of the family when his sister married into the Malfoy line,” Tezuka explained. “She was a nasty piece of work too by all accounts.”

“Pureblood families are such fun,” Fuji said then turned to Echizen, “how’s the revision going?”

Echizen scowled at him, “Tezuka’s helping me.”

“He is perfect at everything,” Fuji said. “And it must be good to have such a cute student, right Tezuka?”

_ He is cute _ , Tezuka’s treacherous brain agreed, but his ignored it. “We’re studying, Fuji.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Fuji said, giving Echizen a knowing look before getting up and leaving to sit with Kawamura and Oishi.

“How many others do you think have walked in on Fuji and Kawamura?” Echizen asked.

“Potions, Echizen,” Tezuka reminded him, feeling himself heat up as images flooded his mind, not of Fuji and Kawamura, but of himself and Echizen.

“Right,” Echizen mumbled, looking back down at his notes, “if I were them I wouldn’t want anyone to walk in. It is Fuji though.”

“What is flobberworm mucus used for in potion making?” Tezuka prompted, personally think that he wouldn’t want anyone to see him kissing Echizen. He forced himself to think about flobberworm mucus.

* * *

  
  


Tezuka went up to bed that night with his head swimming with thoughts of Echizen. Despite being apparently useless at potions, his notes had been very well written and thorough and he’d known everything Tezuka had asked him. He put it down to Professor Snape putting him off during lessons.

He changed into his pyjamas and climbed into bed. Echizen was very cute. With his silky black hair and hazel-y gold eyes that seemed to take up most of his face. He’d look thoroughly innocent if it weren’t for the smirk that seemed permanently attached to his lips. 

Tezuka sighed and nestled down in the pillows, at least all he wanted to do was kiss Echizen and nothing more.

He drifted off sometime later and dreamt of flobberworms.

An uproar of distance shouting and crashing woke him a couple of hours later. 

“What’s happening?” He asked blearily, grabbing his glasses and sliding them quickly onto his face.

“Umbridge has gone after Hagrid,” Inui replied from where he was squatting by the small dorm window with their other roommates.

Tezuka pushed himself out of bed and hurried over to see. Peering through the slightly distorting glass he could see red flashed in the darkness

“They hit Fang!”  Lewis Thornverton cried, “Bastards!”

“Those stunning spells aren’t working well,” Inui replied, squinting through the glass. 

“There’s McGonagall,” Tezuka said, pointing at the castle steps, his heart leaping with joy.

Thornverton pushed the window open ajar and McGonagall’s shouts floated in.

“Oh what grounds are you attacking him? He has done nothing, nothing to warrant such-”

Four stunning spells hit her right in the chest. For a moment, she stood still, glowing an eerie red and the flew backwards, landing heavily on her back.

The continued shouting and fighting couldn’t penetrate the shocked silence that fell in the room. They all watched numbly as Hagrid took out two attackers and then fled with his dog in his arms.

Tezuka realised his hands were shaking and he clenched them hard. “I hate Umbridge,” he said, his usually calm voice shaking with anger.

“What did she attack Hagrid for?” Thornverton growled, “McGonagall was right! He hasn’t done anything!”

“Hagrid is half-giant and Umbridge hates half-humans,” Inui explained.

“He was close to Dumbledore too,” Tezuka said. “So was McGonagall. Umbridge won’t be able to believe her luck,” he added darkly.

Silence fell again. Below, they could hear Umbridge and her accomplices returning to the castle.

“We have exams tomorrow,” Inui said, “we need to sleep.”

Tezuka didn’t sleep well that night, his mind consumed by what he’d just witnessed. 

The next morning, he was immediately jumped on by Fuji who wanted to know all the detail of the previous night. In the end, he had to retell the story three times as the Gryffindors and Taka-san joined them. Inui filled in the missing details of the things that had happened whilst Tezuka had been asleep.

“Do any of you have any exams today?” Echizen asked once the topic had been exhausted. Suddenly, Tezuka’s brain had forgotten everything to do with Umbridge and McGonagall and the fate of Hogwarts and was just full of Echizen.

“I’ve got Divination,” Fuji said cheerfully. “You should take it when you get into third year, Echizen. You’ll love it.”

Echizen looked at Tezuka, who shook his head infinitesimally. Divination and Echizen would not be a good match.

“Tezuka’s too logical for it,” Fuji said. Tezuka resisted the urge to say that he knew full well Fuji made all his answers up and only took the subject in the first place because it was easy.

Thankfully, that was what Kikumaru was for.

“We make up stuff for his homework,” he told Echizen conspiratorially, “It’s really fun.”

“I’ll pass,” Echizen said. “I’ll think about what I’ll take next year.”

“I have Ancient Runes,” Tezuka said, pulling the conversation away from Divination and back to exams.

Eiji let out a drawn out groan, “That sounds  _ so _ boring!”

“Yes, you tell me every time I bring it up,” Tezuka replied and Fuji snorted with laughter.

“We’d better go, Eiji,” Fuji said, “It takes a while to get up to the tower.”

“So, you’ll be revising all morning?” Echizen asked, sounding hopeful.

“I’m afraid so. You should be too,” Tezuka reminded him sternly.

“I wanted to play tennis,” Echizen muttered, stabbing at his bacon disappointedly.

* * *

 

At least the exam had gone well, Tezuka thought as he collapsed into bed that night, completely unaware of what was happening in the forest beyond the castle.

* * *

 

It was an odd feeling, to know that whilst you were asleep history was being made. People would remember this event for centuries -it would be written down in history books- and Tezuka had slept through it.

The details of what happened were sketchy. All they did know was that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had come back. Some people still denied it, but as more rumours appeared it became clear they were wrong. 

Tezuka had his last exam in the morning and no one around him was concentrating, each trying to power through the questions to get out and find out the latest rumours. Tezuka tried to concentrate, but he knew it would be his worst exam.

His friends were waiting for him out on the lawn, relaxing under the trees and letting off steam. Fuji filled him in on the latest details; that Death Eaters had raided the Ministry and Harry Potter and his friends had fought them.

“They should have grabbed us,” Momoshiro complained from where he was lying on the grass, playing with -to Tezuka’s surprise- a tennis ball. “We’re in their house after all!”

“Do you think you could fight Death Eaters?” Kaidoh hissed. 

“I could!” Momo snapped, throwing the tennis ball at Kaidoh, who caught it easily.

“Echizen,” Fuji said quickly, “you were going to show us tennis once we were finished exams.”

Echizen shrugged, “yeah, sure.” He turned to Tezuka, “let’s go get our stuff.”

Twenty minutes later, Echizen and Tezuka returned with their tennis rackets. Tezuka, with instruction from Echizen, used his wand to draw the lines on the grass in white sparks that wouldn’t damage the grass. They didn’t have a net and Echizen ordered the others to imagine one. 

And then, Tezuka was stood on the court, opposite Echizen and the whole world fell away. All around him, important people were doing very important things -things that would affect them all- but right now, there was only tennis. Tennis and Echizen.


End file.
